AffordIt!: A Tool for Authoring Object Component Behavior in Virtual Reality

Sina Masnadi, Andrés N Vargas González, Brian Williamson, Joseph LaViola

Keywords: Virtual Reality, Usability Study, HCI for Development, Interactive Systems

TL;DR: This paper describes the functionality and evaluation of a proposed tool for authoring object component behaviors in a VR environment.

Abstract: In this paper we present AffordIt!, a tool for adding affordances to the component parts of a virtual object. Following 3D scene reconstruction and segmentation procedures, users find themselves with complete virtual objects, but no intrinsic behaviors have been assigned, forcing them to use unfamiliar Desktop-based 3D editing tools. AffordIt! offers an intuitive solution that allows a user to select a region of interest for the mesh cutter tool, assign an intrinsic behavior and view an animation preview of their work. To evaluate the usability and workload of AffordIt! we ran an exploratory study to gather feedback. In the study we utilize two mesh cutter shapes that select a region of interest and two movement behaviors that a user then assigns to a common household object. The results show high usability with low workload ratings, demonstrating the feasibility of AffordIt! as a valuable 3D authoring tool. Based on these initial results we also present a road-map of future work that will improve the tool in future iterations.